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Runelords 09.0 - Nualia's Plan
Bruthazmus grinned wolfishly at the prospect of killing Tsuto, and he led the four of them down a hall and around a corner. Pointing at the entrance three doors down, he stated that that would be where Tsuto was. Nodding, the group walked past the bugbear; Virgil, despite looking terribly distracted, had the presence of mind to stand between Luna and the ranger whose allegiance to them was fragile at best. Ever polite, Virgil instructed them to knock on the door; Tsuto moodily opened it, and his expression quickly changed to shock when he recognized the two men he had knocked out days ago, who had disappeared into thin air. He stated his shock and confusion, which Virgil dismissed as the effects of a spell; Tsuto retorted that he wouldn't believe that they were powerful wizards, to which Virgil replied that he was supposed to believe that they knew one. They stated their intent to duly arrest him as guards of Sandpoint, to which he responded by slamming the door. Eamon, closest to the door, began to knock it down, as Virgil told them to take Tsuto alive: an arrest would be preferential for the town, which would appreciate due legal process after this whole unsavoury affair. The others held as Eamon slammed at the door. As he broke through with astounding force, taking the otherwise-prepared Tsuto off-guard, the door directly adjacent to Virgil opened, revealing a woman in armour and wielding a sword and shield. Virgil immediately put up his hands and began talking the warrior down, trying to avoid an all-out deathmatch in the hallway. She seemed taken off-guard by the armed intruder's willingness to talk over fight; she gave her name as Ilsa, as Virgil introduced himself, and explained that she herself was only a mercenary, hired by Nualia to assist in her plans, and didn't have any real interest in fighting. Suddenly, Bruthazmus shoved Virgil cruelly from behind, knocking him into the woman's room and setting himself up in a tactically advantageous position, should he and the warrior decide to gang up on the man between them. He glared cruelly, still smiling, and it was obvious that he was going to have someone's blood today, though whether it was Virgil's or Tsuto's was still anyone's guess. As Virgil took up a defensive position, still attempting to persuade Ilsa not to attack, he trailed off and seemed to realize something that caused him to pause before swearing blackly. It wasn't pride he was sensing from Bruthazmus, or from anyone else over the last few days: it was wrath. He had somehow become aligned to wrath. Ilsa was unsettled by his peculiar behaviour, but Bruthazmus paid no mind, waiting as he was for his opening. Meanwhile, Eamon began to fight Tsuto, while Khyrralien subtly pushed Luna out of the way of Bruthazmus, before he could get it into his head to betray them. Tsuto refused to come quietly and, after stunning the men blocking the doorway with the strength of his punches, he slipped deftly past them down the hallway. Unfortunately for him, it seemed that Bruthazmus had other ideas: when he stopped behind the bugbear, confident that he was safer than he was a moment ago, Bruthazmus turned and railed upon him brutally with his flail, very nearly killing him in one blow. Realizing that his life depended on it, Tsuto staggered away and fled even further. Eamon was right behind him as he fled. Virgil dropped his guard as Eamon passed, confident that the woman he had been chatting with wouldn't attack him; however, Bruthazmus took that as an opportunity to introduce his flail to his head as well, also nearly caving his head in. With a yell to not let the elf escape, Bruthazmus then ran off down the hall, leaving the seriously wounded Virgil behind. Khyrralien followed after as Virgil pulled back, cursing and healing his head. Luna watched awkwardly the whole while, unsure what to do: all of her means of offence were far from non-deadly, and ill-suited for a tight corridor such as this. When Virgil moved to follow after the others, Luna introduced herself quickly to Ilsa as she tagged after him. Deciding that this was well out of her pay range and that her employer likely wouldn't be good for much more in the way of compensation, Ilsa opted to stay in her room and pack up her things for a hasty retreat. Eamon chased Tsuto down the hallways, all the way back to the stairs that they had entered from. However, rather than climb them, he moved to an adjacent room. The angel was hot on his heels, and ran in just in time to glimpse a woman, who Tsuto was petitioning for help. Appearances suggested that she wasn't the infamous Nualia; she called Tsuto an idiot for bringing people here and suddenly vanished. Eamon ignored this and dealt a final blow to the man, felling him. As he lay bleeding out, Eamon decided to try his best and patch the wounds. Though he had little to no grasp of first aid, luck was on his side: in the last moment, he managed to staunch the blood and stabilize Tsuto, making the unconscious man his prisoner. Khyrralien, who was well behind the others, noticed Bruthazmus before anyone else: the bugbear had turned into the large chapel to Fierna and was calling out to the elf to show himself. The fey watched silently by the door, keeping an eye on the bloodthirsty ranger. When Virgil and Luna caught up shortly after, he waved them on: Eamon and Tsuto evidently weren't here, and he'd watch their 'friend'. Virgil and Luna found Eamon and the unconscious Tsuto presently, and the two soldiers debriefed each other on Bruthazmus' inevitable betrayal, Tsuto's capture and the woman who had disappeared. Whoever she was, she hadn't done anything yet, and they couldn't know whether she was still in the room waiting, if she had gone to warn someone, or if she had just chosen to flee. Ignoring her for the moment, they tossed about ideas of what to do next: they had to take Tsuto out of there alive, since that was their duty as Sandpoint guards; they couldn't leave without killing Nualia, who was the root of the attacks, and; they couldn't let Bruthazmus find them, since he would try to kill Tsuto at the least, if not the rest of them. They were hesitant to murder Bruthazmus, since he had little to do with anything regarding Sandpoint and might be important in convincing the goblin tribes to not attack the town. However, if they left now in order to protect Tsuto, Nualia would likely improve her defenses, and could increase the speed of her invasion or change her base of operations. As they argued, they glanced about the room: it was filled with notes and papers of a technical nature, and the furniture suggested that it was a lab or study of some sort. Something odd caught Eamon's eye: there was a door, hidden in the wall. They found the opening mechanism, and were met with a set of stairs leading down. They both agreed that this was the solution to their problems. Khyrralien jogged in, saying that their friend was on the move and would be there in moments. Grabbing Tsuto, the four dragged their prisoner down the stairs and closed the door behind them, hoping that the bugbear was unaware of the secret entrance. The stairs led them deep underground, eventually into a large room dominated by a huge statue of a man dressed in robes. In one hand, he held a book emblazoned with a seven-pointed star; the other held a glaive. Overall, it was highly reminiscent of the statue of Magelord Alaznist. The inscription on the base had been destroyed, and in fact the whole room seemed to tilt awkwardly to one side, showing cracks and rubble that suggested that the foundation had shifted over the years, damaging the stonework throughout. A single hallway led away, and they followed it. The path was lined with two pairs of statues similar to the large one they had just seen; a larger statue used to stand on the far end, but it had broken over the years and its rubble had rolled along the tilted hall, leaving only the feet behind. Khyrralien led the way, and so was the first one to fall prey to a trap: two heavy portcullises dropped down, separating him from the others before the pair of statues that stood on either side of him began mechanically flailing with their glaives. After a few brutal seconds, the floor opened up and the injured Khyr was sent tumbling into a pit before the trapdoors slid shut on him, trapping him in the hole. The statues returned to their positions, but the portcullises remained down, blocking the others. The group considered what to do; the mechanism for raising the portcullises was not in that room, and they didn't want to leave without Khyr in case they found Nualia. They instead decided to do what they could to get him out: Luna, being the only one mechanically-minded, would have to risk sneaking into the trap's range in order to disarm it. Eamon and Virgil managed to lift the iron grates up just enough to let someone sneak under, propping it up with broken stone debris. Gingerly, she pulled herself through, but she slipped and leaned on the pressure plate that triggered the statues. Fortunately, thanks to her slight build and quick reflexes, she dodged into one of the statue's alcoves, avoiding the flailing weapons. They were afforded a quick glance of Khyr when the trapdoor opened, before it slammed shut once again. Working deftly, Luna jammed the pressure plate so that it couldn't be triggered without effort, and the others squeezed through, lifting Tsuto along as well. As they did so, they heard someone coming: it was Ilsa. She had packed up to leave but had wanted to steal a quick glance at this area before she went: Nualia hadn't allowed anyone who knew about this path down it, and since she had been paying cash, it stood to reason that the money was kept down here. The others instructed her on how to pass through the portcullis, and she joined them on their investigation. When informed that they were going to kill Nualia, she took the information in stride. They either would or they wouldn't: if it came to blows, she'd wait until it was obvious who stood to be the victor before throwing her lot in with them. However, she had a healing potion on her that she would sell them for the right price. They took no offense to her cavalier attitude, but passed on the potion. Finally, with everyone on the far side, they worked on freeing Khyr. Dislodging the plate so that the statues could be triggered again, they pushed the button from a safe distance. When the doors swung open, Luna shoved Eamon's ranseur into the gap, wedging the weapon in place so that they couldn't close again. With that, they easily pulled him out of the hole, owing to his prodigious height, though his antlers got him stuck as he tried to get his head under the portcullis. Some deft twisting got him free; they reclaimed their ranseur and left the trap armed to deter any more followers. Presented with two doors at the end of the hallway, the group moved towards their left, into a small antechamber. Beyond it, the room widened into a larger study room, circular and filled with various pieces of furniture. Packed shelves lined the walls, and the room was lit with several enchanted candles set in skulls. A yeth hound, like the one that had been in the shrine upstairs, lounged near a table, and a woman stood nearby. She was radiantly beautiful, possessed of an almost otherworldly quality, but the effect was marred by her left arm, twisted and warped by Infernal magics into something fiendish, and by the giant grotesque scars that criss-crossed her lower midriff, left purposefully exposed by the cut of her clothes. Nualia sneered at Eamon as he entered first, sword already drawn; he ignored her words and rushed to meet her in combat, his battle rage already warping his body. She gladly met his assault, wielding a toothed bastard sword with no lack of finesse. Virgil moved to support his teammate, while Khyrralien quickly became entangled with Nualia's Infernal canine. Luna waited in the antechamber, throwing explosives when she could, while Ilsa bided her time, waiting for the outcome to make itself clear. Luna's fire caught the various chairs ablaze, and the smoldering furniture made obstacles that the fighters had a difficult time maneuvering around. Eamon continued to press his offense, despite the damage he was sustaining from both the woman and her summoned dog, who had abandoned Khyrralien for the good-aligned intruder. Eamon's rage dissolved his appearance further and further, and he continued to fight stonily as his eyes became bright orange, his skin azure, and several circular halos manifested to spin concentrically around his head. More terrible than that were Nualia's own attacks: whenever she struck her opponent, their body twisted and became demonic in nature, adding horns and hooved feet to Eamon's already altered appearance. Nualia defied him and Heaven to the end, until she fell forwards onto his sword with her last breath, stabbing him as she did so. Virgil could see that Eamon was only hanging on due to the ferocity of his rage; he ran over to Ilsa, pleading for her potion immediately that he would pay her for later. With a bit of hesitance, she passed it over to him, and he tossed it immediately to Luna, who ran over to Eamon and passed it to him before his rage dissipated and he unsummoned along with it. The yeth hound, seeing its master die and its enemies surround it, suddenly flew up into the air, over their heads and out the door. Deciding that they didn't honestly care where the dog went, the group convened around the fallen Nualia. Luna confirmed that she was, in fact, dead, and identified the various magical items she carried, including a necklace with a gold sihedron, like the symbols on the Magelords' statues. They claimed her sword, her armour, and a particularly nice bow that Khyr took a shining to. She had worn a gold symbol of Fierna, akin to the iron one the quasit had possessed; Luna looked at it with pursed lips before hanging it on Khyrralien's antlers as one would decorate a holiday tree: the fey was tickled pink. Meanwhile, as the changes brought about by Eamon's rage faded along with his battle fury, they found that the monstrous alterations did not vanish along with them, leaving him with the rather distinct appearance of a devil. Eamon remained quiet throughout this, obviously in no mood to talk. In the various notes and books around the room, they found even more evidence that Nualia was the one behind the attacks, and journals that detailed her life and her hatred. She had always been set apart from the Sandpoint: worshiped yes, but left alienated and alone. One day, she had happened to meet a man who treated her differently, who spoke to her as a person and not as an object of beauty and mystery. Things were wonderful for a time, until she found herself with child. Suddenly, the man called her a whore and abandoned her, and her father turned her away. She left and made her way to the city, where the child was born. Through some convergence of factors, her extraplanar blood, her hate or something else altogether, the baby was not born as it should be: it was twisted, inhuman and cruel, and nearly killed its mother. As the midwives tried to save Nualia, one of them quietly removed the creature and ended its life almost as soon as it had begun. The event drove Nualia to madness: she abandoned her faith in Yoma and began to fervently worship Fierna, the mother of monsters, seeking her dark blessing. She took up with a cult that based itself in the city, and eventually, hired several mercenaries to band with her to destroy Sandpoint once and for all. Collecting the notes, Nualia's body, the magical candles and a lock-box of treasure that was hidden under a table, the majority of which went to Ilsa for her timely healing potion, the group moved to investigate the rooms on the other side of the hall. Beyond the door they found what appeared to be a giant column of gold coins forming a pillar that blocked the end of the hall, though the passage led off in another direction as well. Khyrralien saw through the illusion that gave the stone statue the appearance of gold, but opted to not tell anyone; meanwhile, Luna spied a small slot in the column that appeared to be about the right size for a coin. She dropped one of her gold pieces into the slot, and they could hear it roll away before sliding into a mechanism with a click. She repeated this twice before the pillar suddenly retreated into the floor, revealing a room with three more doors, where it seemed no one had tread in ages. The first door they opened was a small room that was empty, save for a stone chair on the far end. An illusion of the same man depicted in the nearby statues was projected onto it, any realism quickly ruined by a flaw in the spell. The image was repeating a phrase over and over as it flickered and started again: a broken recording. Luna and Virgil parsed out the meaning of the words quickly enough, though they were in ancient Valparisan: it was part of a message that seemed to be a death order for his soldiers fighting Alaznist, to remember his glory and power as it dwarfed hers and to take that knowledge to their graves. The next room was a dissection room of sorts, filled with numerous tools and devices of a mysterious intent. However, these objects had been protected from the ravages of time by minor enchantment, and seemed new. They collected many of them up, hoping to sell them. Luna spied a particularly curious object: a round device with several pronged ends, that may have been a key. It's use was quickly discovered: the third door possessed a recess that matched it perfectly. Luna popped it in, and the door slid away for Khyrralien to enter. As he looked in, he saw a square pit filled with coals and cinders, heating the room unbearably, and numerous candles lit the room ominously. Suddenly, something dropped onto him, grabbing his head and throat and hissing furiously. It was a barghest: a devil likely beyond the group's current capacity to fight. The demon hissed and spat as Khyrralien frowned, unhappy at the development. Virgil put up his hands and tried to engage it in conversation in their shared profane tongue; Eamon slunk further away, not wanting to provoke it with his presence. Ilsa watched Virgil speak with a supreme hesitance, talking in a tongue not meant for mortals to hear. The barghest demanded its freedom: it came off as almost insane, which was unsurprising, given that it appeared to have been bound in that room since the Magelord had ruled some millenia in the past. It clung to Khyrralien, using him as a hostage in its bid for freedom. It didn't trust Virgil's words, taking his promises of assistance as empty. Knowing he needed to remove Ilsa from the room in order to dispel his shift freely, he made some poor choices of phrase that served only to offend her, making himself sound extremely misogynist. Eventually, he managed to make her leave, though not gracefully by any means. When he was alone with Khyrralien and the barghest, Virgil shifted back to his devil form. He attempted to gain its trust, though the only way they had of giving it freedom was to kill it and send it back to Hell; its alternative was to kill them, leaving it stranded for another three thousand years. It sized up Virgil, and eventually seemed to sense something to its liking: Virgil could sense the creature's wrathful affinity, the anger that drove it, and he knew that it could sense the same in him. After a pause, it told Virgil to make it quick. Stepping forwards, Virgil brought his sword down on the devil's undefended neck, unsummoning it in a single blow. With the whispered elation at its freedom lingering in their ears, Virgil took up his human appearance once more and invited everyone in to search. There was little in the room beyond the coals and magic candles, which they packed up. However, an inconsistency in a decorative alcove caught Virgil's attention. Prodding at it revealed a hidden stash, containing a very valuable looking box, within which was a gold ring bearing the seven-pointed star. The enchantment on it was very powerful, the ability to create a shield of force: Virgil happily slid it on his finger. Having exhausted these rooms, they went back to the hall where the gold column used to be. At the other end was another door, which they followed to a large mausoleum that appeared to house the bodies of the compound's architects. There was no trace of magic in any of the coffins, so they left them undisturbed, choosing to instead move deeper in. A series of halls led away, but all lead towards a caved-in area that sunk into the ocean. On a wall was a mostly-intact stone mosaic that seemed to depict a vague map of sorts leading to a golden city hidden in the mountains. What was left of the room before it dropped off into the water was filled with thousands of coins and gems. Half submerged was a giant helmet made of gold, nearly five feet across. Deciding that they couldn't carry something that size out of the dungeon no matter how valuable it was, the group began to harvest up as much money from the ground as possible. As they went about their work, Ilsa noticed the helmet shift. Suddenly, they were under attack by an enormous hermit crab that had made its home in the gold. It tried to grab the women in turn, but the others quickly chopped off the creature's claws, sending it retreating into the water with its priceless shell. Without further interruption, they managed to pile up a sizeable mound of coins. Unfortunately, they still lacked any means to carry such a horde with them, so they put what gold they could carry into their bags and pockets and left the rest. With their mission completed and the basement explored, the group decided they should probably make their escape from Thistletop Shrine. Carrying the still-unconscious Tsuto and the corpse of Nualia, they made their way cautiously back through the ancient remains of the Magelord's fort and up the stairs they had taken earlier. They were met with no resistance, and found that the study room they exited into had been stripped bare of all notes and belongings: it seemed that Ilsa was not the only one with the plan to flee. Now past nightfall, they walked back into the exercise yard and saw the horse they had freed earlier. It was lying on its side, bleeding profusely from a vicious wound on its neck: the goblins had taken advantage of its weakened state. They rushed towards the animal, and found that it was still breathing shallowly. They couldn't bear to let the poor creature die, and with the others' assistance, Luna managed to patch up its wound and stop the bleeding, stabilizing it on the brink of death. There was no hope of moving it in the state it was in; their only hope to save the horse was to wait with it until morning, when Virgil could prepare more spells again. Ilsa, who thought them all a bit odd for putting this animal's life over theirs, said that Bruthazmus was, if nothing else, an opportunist and a coward: if he thought that he could kill them all, he would have tried it already. With that in mind, the Pandemonium soldiers agreed to take the risk and camp there for the night, for the sake of the unfortunate horse. It was their hope that Bruthazmus and the goblins wouldn't risk another confrontation and would let them stay unhampered until dawn. For the sake of maintaining appearances, people pretended to sleep while Ilsa took her turn watching; everyone remained alert through the night. At dawn, Virgil had recovered enough to cast his spells again, and he wasted no time healing the horse's wounds; conversely, when Tsuto showed signs of stirring, he received another swift knock to the head. The animal perked up, but they unfortunately still had nothing to feed it; regardless, it recognized that the people surrounding it were at least less terrifying than the goblins. With care, Virgil took some of the rope that they had been using on Tsuto and fashioned a lead. As they got the horse to its feet and turned to leave, they were met with an unfortunate sight: a group of goblins shoved open the doors to the yard and stomped in. Four particularly well-armed fighters, aided by a goblin leading the firepelt cougar that they had crossed the day before, surrounding a regally-attired goblin riding a giant anole. Chief Ripnugget had returned. The chieftain screeched at them: the filthy intruding longshanks had freed the horse monster. When they retorted that they had killed Nualia and were leaving, it enraged the goblin further, that they had killed his ally. With a screamed command, he ordered them to attack, and the warriors leapt forwards as he charged on his reptilian mount. Eamon picked up Nualia, while Virgil grabbed Tsuto and tried to goad the horse into following his lead; the animal was recalcitrant at first, panicked and weak. It was easy to see that they were outnumbered and still weakened from the day before: Khyrralien realized this quickly, and passed his bow to Luna and his bag to Virgil, before they turned and fled. He was already quite hurt, and would enjoy murdering some goblins before popping back to his house. As the rest of the group fled out the opposite door, Khyrralien delayed their enemies, though he didn't stand long against the band and their two ferocious beasts. Khyrralien's numerous scarves and decorative ornaments, to say nothing of his pocketfuls of gold, showered down on the grass as he vanished. Running towards the bridge, they noticed that it had been loosened again on the far side, and they had no time to strengthen it. They would be lucky if it held for them if they went one at a time. With no time to think or do anything, they sent the horse across first: they reasoned that the cougar must have crossed, and they most certainly weren't going to let the animal be touched by goblins again. Truly, saving this horse had become their mission. With a swift smack, they sent it running across the rickety bridge; as soon as its hooves touched ground, Virgil ran after it to calm it and lead it through the bramble maze. Meanwhile, the chieftain and the cougar had caught up, forcing the others to fight them back. As the other goblins closed the gap, Ilsa was instructed to go next. Before she went, Eamon passed Nualia's body over to her, since it was imperative that they get it back to town as proof. Ilsa nodded gravely, took the burden, and ran. Eamon bravely fought back Ripnugget and his beasts as Luna tossed a bomb, the other four goblins jumping into the fray as well. Luna watched as Eamon was overwhelmed, and his effects clattered to the ground. She turned and ran, stopping only to throw a bomb at the bridge behind her, setting the rickety planks and rotted rope aflame. The bridge quickly collapsed, stranding Ripnugget and his men on the far side. Luna caught up with the others, and they made the long, sombre walk back to Sandpoint. Virgil walked a bit ahead, obviously lost in unpleasant thought and leading the horse that, for all purposes, two men had died to save. Ilsa fell back to walk with Luna, and offered her condolences for her two friends who had fallen. Luna nodded her head and thanked her, though Ilsa noted that neither person seemed quite as broken up as they should be. When they approached town, Virgil cast a simple illusion to disguise the corpse and the unconscious prisoner as innocuous sacks. They first stopped at the stables at the edge of town and boarded the horse, overpaying tenfold for the best medical attention and care. The owner, who hated goblins with a bloodthirsty passion, was all too happy to help such a denigrated animal. Ilsa assumed that they would next go to the sheriff or some other town authority to turn in the criminal; she was confused when instead they went to a small house, that appeared to be home to an elderly scholar or wizard of sorts. Virgil grumbled the whole while, but didn't explain anything aloud: when they got to Quint's he was in an ill-temper indeed. He mentioned that they had found another building owned by a Magelord, which caught the man's interest, but he cared extremely little about anything else, including the request to resummon Eamon and Khyrralien, and a demand for information regarding further runewells. The devil pitched a surly fit, displeased at Quint's dismissive attitude, but the man was non-plussed, waving him away and answering nothing. He took his time investigating Luna's notes and sketches of the ruined property of the Magelord, and glanced over Nualia's body. An hour later, he began the casting of the ritual needed to bring back Khyr and Eamon. Luna and Virgil retired to other rooms to wait; Ilsa first joined Luna, then Virgil. The warrior asked questions a tad hesitantly: the knowledge that these people were actually extraplanars was unsettling, and she feared what sort of schemes they might be up to. Luna was polite and unoffended, and agreed that while it would probably be better if they weren't around, they were still being properly summoned for a purpose, and they were helping with the town's problems. Ilsa was wary that they were lying about their intent, particularly Virgil, but Luna shrugged: either he was a decently-intentioned albiet short-sighted, self-centered jerk, or he was an extremely good liar with much darker aims, and she would be simultaneously shocked and not surprised when they came to fruition. Virgil, for his part, apologized for his temper and rude comments earlier, and answered what few questions Ilsa posited towards him before she excused herself, disinclined to stay in his presence. When Khyrralien was unsummoned, he had found himself once again back in his mushroom glade, bereft of pants. He didn't care, and settled in for a wait. A day or so passed pleasantly until he felt the pull of the summons again. Meanwhile, Eamon found himself in the Pandemonium barracks, lacking his gear; thankfully, since he had still been wearing his uniform under his concealing cloak, he wasn't naked, and it seemed that the curious mutations that Nualia had caused had vanished. Deciding that a summons should occur presently, he sat on his bed and waited. Hours passed and still nothing happened, and he made a decision: he didn't want to report in to command yet. Therefore, he had to leave before he was questioned. Throwing on a hat, he scuttled out of the barracks and made for the ghetto outside of the fort. He was stopped by a fellow private, who questioned him lightly, but Eamon managed to convince him not to reveal his presence to their superiors. Without further interruption, he fled Pandemonium and found himself in the ghetto that clung tightly to its walls. With nowhere else to go, Eamon made his way to the small apartment where Khyrralien and Virgil were quartered. He sat himself lightly atop some pillows and began to wait. As time passed, he slunk ever lower into the cushions. Days passed, and he began to itch for something to occupy himself with. More days passed until he found the pile of 'menus' that the others had collected, fliers of incantations to have various delights brought to you. A few more days until he began, hesitantly at first, to use some of them. Months passed in a monotonous haze of drugs, foods, distractions and board games played with prostitutes. Two years passed until Eamon finally felt the summoning call for him. The summoning completed and deposited into the room Khyrralien, naked, and Eamon, disheveled, clad only in briefs and with a red gecko clinging to his chest. Eamon looked vaguely around until his eyes happened upon the fey, whose pointy, unsettling appearance was on full display; the angel frowned and requested clothes. Quint considered his requests of them carefully, before declaring that it was now their jobs to escort him safely to investigate any and all ruins that they discovered. They agreed without consideration, as Eamon peeled the lizard off of his chest to consider it. Luna chided him for holding it by its tail and scooped it up, offended by his treatment of the tiny creature of Hell. Placing it down gently, her and Virgil left to acquire some clothes for the two naked men. When they were dressed, they set off to see the mayor. They presented her with the corpse of Nualia and the concussed Tsuto, explaining what had happened and that the danger was passed. She declared that Tsuto would be kept in prison and would be dealt with under due course of the law; Nualia's body would be quietly cremated and interred in the plot where she was supposed to have been buried five years prior. She thanked them sincerely for their help and promised to reward them when the sheriff returned, but regretted to say that any thanks would have to be necessarily kept vague. On that note, she had the group agree that, as far as the rest of the town was concerned, Tsuto was the sole proprietor, he did what he did out of hate-madness for his father and the town, and that the story ended there: Nualia was always dead, there was no evil shrine under the town, no devils, no ancient evils, no monster cults and nothing more frightening than goblins and a lone madman. They agreed with this, and apologized for the loss of the town's equipment, though they did not mention specifically how they had come to lose two chain shirts, a sword and a bow. She waved it away; it was a small cost for the town's safety. With their business concluded, the group stepped out onto the town streets, which were once more made safe. Category:Rise of the Runelords